Heavy Metal is apparently too heavy for Paramount Pictures. The film's production team is now shopping the flick to other studios after Paramount said they were no longer interested in distributing the animated movie.

According to Hollywood Insider and Blur Studio head Tim Miller, Paramount's new executive team developed a serious case of cold feet after producer/director David Fincher insisted that he wanted a hard 'R' rating for the animated movie, an update of the 1981 cult classic (which, by the way, also had an 'R' rating).

Despite Paramount's lack of testicular fortitude, Miller is confident that a new Heavy Metal movie will get made.

"David really believes in the project," he told Hollywood Insider. "It's just a matter of time."

In my blog posting, I told you about the rumors of Paramount’s vicious fight with Fincher behind the scenes over the running time of the film. We also tried to connect the dots between the departure of Fincher’s planned adaption of Heavy Metal and the rumored fight. Now The Playlist has found an interview with Kevin Eastman, creator of the Ninja Turtles and publisher of Heavy Metal, where he finally confirms the rumors:

“We developed it for Paramount in January… And it was time for them to make a decision [about going forward with the project] and they were at odds with Fincher over another project, ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,’ [because] they wanted him to reduce the running time… and so they said, ‘Until you step up to do what we want you to do with Benjamin, we’re not going to greenlight any other of [your] movies.’ And David said, ‘Fine, fuck you, I’m going to set up [Heavy Metal] somewhere else,’ so we jumped over to Sony and set it up there.”

In my blog posting, I told you about the rumors of Paramount’s vicious fight with Fincher behind the scenes over the running time of the film. We also tried to connect the dots between the departure of Fincher’s planned adaption of Heavy Metal and the rumored fight. Now The Playlist has found an interview with Kevin Eastman, creator of the Ninja Turtles and publisher of Heavy Metal, where he finally confirms the rumors:

“We developed it for Paramount in January… And it was time for them to make a decision [about going forward with the project] and they were at odds with Fincher over another project, ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,’ [because] they wanted him to reduce the running time… and so they said, ‘Until you step up to do what we want you to do with Benjamin, we’re not going to greenlight any other of [your] movies.’ And David said, ‘Fine, fuck you, I’m going to set up [Heavy Metal] somewhere else,’ so we jumped over to Sony and set it up there.”

My own little dork clan in high school failed to overplay Heavy Metal, in favor of Brazil and The Crow... By the time I was around people who loved the film, I was seeing it's flaws too clearly to really dig on it. I do love the thread, though!

The filmmaker made the announcment Thursday during his panel at Comic-Con, and announced that he's seeking ideas from fans via a web site.

"I think one of the ideas I always believed in is international artists coming together to show their best work," he said. "And when I ask other fans what they think, they all want to work on it. So I thought it would be really cool if everyone got the chance."

The magazine, which began publishing in 1977 in the United States, specializes in dark fantasy/science-fiction and erotica. It inspired a 1981 animated feature and a 2000 sequel.

Paramount Pictures had announced in 2008 that it was developing an animated film inspired by Heavy Metal with director David Fincher spearheading the project. The film would have consisted of eight or nine animated segments, each directed by a different helmer including Fincher; Kevin Eastman, the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" co-creator who became owner and publisher of Heavy Metal; and Tim Miller, whose Blur Studios was set to handle the animation.

Eastman appeared with Rodriguez at Thursday's event.

"Some of the stories we're working on already, but I'm leaving a slot open for the audience who has been so good to Heavy Metal and who has always believed in Heavy Metal and what it could be," Rodriguez said. "And I think it would be great if we all participated together and made this the best version of Heavy Metal that ever existed."

Rodriguez announced in November that he'd teamed with Gigi Pritzker's OddLot Entertainment and Michel Litvak's Bold Films on Quick Draw Prods., a film production and finance shingle. His fourth "Spy Kids" film -- "Spy: All the Time in the World" -- is set to be released Aug. 19.

Seth Jones wrote:A Heavy Metal movie, a Frank Frazetta art gallery, Sin City 2 and … Machete in space? Director Robert Rodriguez came to Comic-Con International in San Diego loaded with news from his own Quick Draw studios.

Rodriguez showed the crowd a close-up of the Heavy Metal logo set to heavy-metal music. He said Heavy Metal has always been an inspiration to him. He heard murmurs that the property might get dusted off, so he called a friend who put him in touch with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman, who owns the rights.

“I was a huge fan, I bought the first issue off the newsstand in 1967,” said Eastman, who appeared at Rodriguez’s panel. “[Heavy Metal] led me to self-publishing. When it came time to do my own comic book, self-publishing enabled me to keep the profits. So Heavy Metal helped me buy Heavy Metal.”

“I love the idea of artists from all over the word showing off their work,” Rodriguez said. “My think tank always had [Conan creator] Robert Howard, Sin City and Heavy Metal.”

Rodriguez’s next big announcement was a collaboration with the family of legendary fantasy artist Frank Frazetta, who passed away last year. Together they’ll work to create a Frazetta art gallery in Austin, near Rodriguez’s studio.

“I was inspired by [Frazetta] since [age] 11,” he said. “Frank created the look for iconic characters such as Conan, John Carter, Tarzan, Death Dealer … the books flew off the shelves when he did the covers. I worked with him first in 1995 on From Dusk ‘Til Dawn — we made Salma Hayek gain some weight so she’d be more like a Frazetta girl, real curvy.”

Rodriguez introduced Frazetta’s son Billy, who joined him on stage. “As a child growing up, very early, even at age 3 I could see that [my father] was a genius,” Frazetta said. “I was probably 6 when the first cover came out. I was very young when I knew this father of mine was going to be one of the great artists.”

“We want to bring worldwide recognition back to Frazetta,” Rodriguez added. “Frank’s inventiveness and creativeness remains intact. I was surprised by how much of Frank’s original art he still held on to. He never sold them, he wanted fans to come to his gallery and see them.”

Rodriguez said the Frazetta paintings have an even bigger impact when they’re seen in person.

“It was Billy’s idea [to put the gallery in Austin]. That way I can be there … connected with my studio, and control the look and feel of it,” Rodriguez said. “I want, as soon as you walk in, you walk into the Frazetta world.”

“[Frazetta is] one of the main reasons I do what I do,” Rodriguez continued. “This joint venture is going to allow us to generate revenue. So they don’t have to sell the paintings. When you come down to South by Southwest, come down and see the Frazettas.”

Rodriguez also talked about the long-discussed sequel to 2005’s Sin City, which he said possibly could start filming this year.

“Frank [Miller] has written a script for Sin City 2, it’s called A Dame to Kill For. We’re following the [format of the] first one,” the filmmaker explained. “Two stories are new. One is called ‘The Long Bad Night.’ There is a scenario that it could be shot as early as this year. That’s the best scenario. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen this year.”

Rodriguez talked about how the buzz at Comic-Con helped make the first Sin City a success.

“When I did Sin City, I brought that to show you, I showed pages of the comic, then scenes from the movie,” he said. “That blew the lid off Sin City… people really supported it at the theaters. It’s really hard to predict what an audience is going to want in a year or two.”

Rodriguez thanked the crowd, which filled less than half of the cavernous Hall H, for supporting his 2010 action film Machete. “The DVD went crazy. Thank you for that. Machete will kill again,” he said to applause.

He said the sequel will be called Machete Kills, with a third installment to be titled Machete Kills Again. He joked that the third movie probably would be a space opera that he only makes as a preview for Machete Kills.

“Everyone will get a scratch-and-sniff card,” he said. “The idea was great, the tech has improved, the tech is amazing. There are eight instances throughout the movie when the number flashes, you smell that number. When they have bacon in the morning, you smell the bacon. Even if you’re not a kid, you’re going to be into it, it’s pretty fun. And it’s free. That comes out next month, Aug. 19th.”

Rodriguez talked about how he was the first one to revitalize the 3D craze, when he released Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over eight years ago.

“[But] I gave it to you for free — I gave you the glasses, I paid for those glasses,” he said. “I’m still paying for it!”

So I finally saw the original HEAVY METAL and I was actually pretty impressed. I had low expectations figuring it would just be some outdated Canadian stoner hentai, which it is, but it's surprisingly entertaining. The various segments were all pretty fun. The tone was just right for me. Most of them had humour, but never to the point of self-parody. I liked 'Den' the most because it had a good mix of action and kitschy sex humour, although I didn't like their squeemishness in avoiding the main character's cock. On the special feature of the DVD they show the comic strip and in the comic Den has a nice generous phalus in full view but they cover it with a loincloth for the movie. Zach Snyder wouldn't have denied us that vision. I found the last one to be the weakest, it was just too generic and that warrior lady spent too much time getting her ass kicked and then only beat the bad guy because her pet weakened him for her. I also thought they overused John Candy, although his voice did suit all the characters they had him playing. I laughed a lot at the segment were he plays Deadmau5 fucking Christine Hendricks. It would've been nice if Reitman had got Bill Murray in there somewhere.

On the DVD they have some test version of a deleted sequence similiar to that Pearl Jam video 'Do The Evolution'. The guys cut it at the time because they felt it was too highbrow and threw off the tone and they now regret doing that. I agree with their regret and feel it would've improved the film and given it a nice FANTASIA quality.

On the DVD, the guys who made it mostly come across as douches spouting bizarrely wrong social observations such as how during the Reagen 1980s people became more conservative and weren't interested in movies full of moronic macho action and objectification of women. I guess these guys never heard of the "Raegen blockbuster" type of movie as popularized by the likes of various EXPENDABLES cast members. Also , like a lot of older guys, they love to present the world of today as some hypersensitive politically correct nightmare and frequently use the words "stuff you could never get away with today". I guess it helps them feel like they were real badasses or something. But I will give them points for not trying to pass off the sexually exploitive nature of the film as empowerment or some bullshit. They all come right out and say they're breast men who wanted to objectify women in this film both for wanking purposes and for the novelty of doing it.

Anyway, watching HEAVY METAL was a fun experience and I definately feel this type of project would have an easier time now than ever. The home video market seems to be full of special interest adult cartoons. That ANIMATRIX thing was well-recieved. Rob Zombie made one about a motorcycling satanic luccadore or something. That FAMILY GUY dickface seems to shit out a new DTV movie every week. And there seems to be a whole pack of genre-loving filmmakers out there who come from musicvideo backgrounds and therefore could get musicians involved and are good at filming short stylized films and would love to be part of something like this.

So consider me stoked for a new entry in this. I'm very interested to hear the list of talent that lines up for this new one.

Jay A. Fernandez wrote:Tuesday night at the SXSW Film festival, local fixture Robert Rodriguez took to the ACL Live stage at the Moody Theater to announce several new Quickdraw Productions initiatives — and play some rock and roll. Rodriguez is set to launch an animation company called Quickdraw Animation, with two feature-film projects already in the works, as well as a filmmaking contest in partnership with his technology partner AMD.

Part of the SXSW Interactive Festival, the event featured performances by Chingon, which features Rodriguez on guitar, and Tito and Tarantula, both of which appeared on the soundtracks of Desperado, From Dusk Til Dawn and Machete. The pertinent scenes from those movies played on a screen behind the bands as they performed the tunes.

Quickdraw Animation will be its own entity with its own financing and infrastructure devoted to making CG-animated feature films. The first two films are Heavy Metal and a family film, both of which have finished scripts and are moving into storyboard pre-production phases. As part of his continuing DIY methodology, Rodriguezsays that he has found a way to streamline the animation process that will greatly shrink the amount of time it takes to produce one. Exactly how, he won’t say (nor will he give away the family film’s title, which much like Spy Kids, he says, would give away the whole concept), but the writer-director has built an entire career around the DIY method. For the new animation company, he will keep a core group of 6-8animators in-house at his Austin-based Troublemaker Studios to mastermind all the story and visual elements before using sister companies to finish the animation.

The contest with AMD, which launches Wednesday, March 14, asks participants to upload 60-90-second trailers to Facebook that Rodriguez and others will judge. Two-month windows devoted to different regions of the world will open throughout the summer and fall, with winners from each of the four sections chosen to meet with Rodriguez to flesh out their ideas and take home some digital filmmaking gear, including Sony Vegas software and an HP notebook.

One of the four will also be handed a grand prize of access to a complete array of AMD-and-HP-provided editing equipment (the same Rodriguez uses on his films), ongoing mentoring from the writer-director and quarterly meetings with Quickdraw and Troublemaker to get updates on the project. As AMD PR manager Jeff Lowe says, “The goal is to find the next Robert,” a filmmaker who famously made his first movie, El Mariachi, for about $7,250 and continues to do much of the work on his films himself (writing, directing, cinematography, editing, scoring). Winners will be announced at ACL Fest in October.

“It’s an interesting way to reinforce Robert’s brand, especially with El Rey coming out,” says Lowe, referring to the Comcast-Universal network Rodriguez is pulling together for a late 2013 launch.

Sitting in the central conference room of the Troublemaker offices on Monday, Rodriguez was enthusiastic about the possibilities of ElRey, despite being worn out by a late-night practice session with Chingon in preparation for the Tuesday night show. “We need content! Go make stuff and send it! We’ll be the first Cloud network,” he said with a laugh.

Rodriguez says that he pitched the newly merged company,which must host a number of minority-owned channels as part of its programming, on what he views as “Desperado TV,” focused on the critically and perpetually underserved demographic of Latino men. The AMD filmmaking contest is just one of the ways Rodriguez is looking for new talent, but he says he also has seen major interest from A-List Latino creative forces in Hollywood, such as Salma Hayek, Benicio del Toro and Michelle Rodriguez.

“It’s like a switch goes off in their minds, like this is what we’ve been building up to do, is to really step into more of a leadership position in the community to empower and help others,” says Rodriguez. “There’s nobody really operating in that space. That’s where the real growth is, in the Hispanic community. It’s the largest, fastest-growing minority, but there’s nothing really targeting them. There are 500 networks and none of them are doing anything in that area. So that’s what I’m going for right there.”

Beyond its business possibilities, Rodriguez sees El Rey as yet another way to speak to and shape the identities of new generations of young immigrants from South and Central America. “That’s what’s most needed culturally, too,” he says. “You need to help not just reflect that identity but also shape that identity. Because if you ask any Latino, ‘Are you Latino?’ they might say, ‘Well, I don’t really speak Spanish, I’m not really American, I’m floating in between, and I’m not on TV, so I must not exist.’ It would change people’s view of themselves if they finally exist in this space.”

Additionally on the film front, Rodriguez says that Machete 2 starts shooting in April and Sin City 2, after several fits and starts, is likely to begin production over the summer. He’s thus far mum on casting, though he was willing to indicate that discussions with potential stars of both projects will be of the same caliber and eclecticism as the first films, which featured Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Robert De Niro, Lindsay Lohan, Josh Hartnett, Don Johnson and Steven Seagal.

MARC GRASER wrote:The pages of Heavy Metal magazine have long held a soft spot in the hearts of Hollywood filmmakers, with the cult publication giving a voice to fans of science fiction and fantasy since the 1970s. Like every popular aging brand, however, Heavy Metal is getting a reboot, with new investors set to turn the magazine into a full-fledged entertainment banner to produce films, TV shows and other forms of content dedicated to the genre fare that made it popular nearly four decades ago.

Kevin Eastman, who has served as the sole publisher of Heavy Metal since 1991, has sold the magazine to digital and music vet David Boxenbaum and film producer Jeff Krelitz, who raised several million dollars in private equity to purchase the publication. Financial details were not disclosed.

But as part of the recent transaction, Eastman, who co-created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, will continue to serve as publisher of the magazine, and is a minority investor in the new Heavy Metal. Boxenbaum and Krelitz now serve as co-CEOs of the company.

Heavy Metal’s new owners aren’t wasting any time, setting up the first projects to be released under the new banner.

Krelitz is overseeing Heavy Metal’s film, TV, IP and global publishing initiatives in the U.S., Europe and Asia, and already has brought in his TV shows “Red Brick Road,” a “Game of Thrones”-style take on “The Wizard of Oz,” that’s set up at Warner Horizon with Roy Lee, Adrian Askarieh and Mark Wolper; the Peter Pan-inspired “Peter Panzerfaust,” an adaptation of the Image comic that BBC Worldwide is developing with Elijah Wood; and a version of another Image book, “Chew,” as a direct-to-video animated film and live action series.

Meanwhile, Boxenbaum is managing Heavy Metal’s music, online, branding and digital initiatives from New York City. He previously co-founded and was chief operating officer of A&M/Octone Records and sold the record label to Universal.

The goal is to turn Heavy Metal into a more influential brand for mainstream audiences and genre fans the way Thomas Tull’s Legendary Entertainment has focused on tentpole titles that target the sci-fi, fantasy and horror audience with “Man of Steel,” Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, “300″ and the upcoming “Godzilla” and “Warcraft.”

Heavy Metal already has a strong fanbase, especially in Hollywood.

First published as “an adult illustrated fantasy magazine” in 1977, Heavy Metal was seen as one of the few outlets for original science fiction and fantasy, with long-running serials written by writers like Richard Corben and Matt Howarth, while its mix of stylized erotic art took on a life of its own. “Alien”-creature designer H.R. Giger was featured on covers with Archie Goodwin’s adaptation of the film published in Heavy Metal in 1979.

In 1981, a low-budget animated film, based on the magazine’s serials was released, featuring John Candy, Eugene Levy, Harold Ramis and Ivan Reitman.

David Fincher and James Cameron had been attached to produce and direct a 10-part 3D-animated Heavy Metal film as an anthology of stories, with Zack Snyder, Gore Verbinski and Guillermo del Toro also set to direct segments. But Paramount balked at potential appeal of the project at the megaplex and ultimately passed on the pic in 2009, with Robert Rodriguez picking up the film rights to develop through his Quick Draw Studios in 2011.

Eastman wasn’t necessarily looking to sell, but was attracted to the idea of growing the brand beyond its print and digital editions into something larger.

“There are so many fans of Heavy Metal in the industry,” Krelitz said. “It was the place that inspired them to become who they are now and has the potential to be so much more,” with Heavy Metal’s new owners looking to rally creatives around the brand with their projects.

Krelitz and Boxenbaum said they want to continue to give writers, especially those working in the comicbook biz, voices through the publication, that will be revamped as both a print and online quarterly. But stories they tell could also be developed into projects for other entertainment platforms the way Krelitz has done through his Quality Transmedia banner. Krelitz also founded Contraband Films, which set up TV shows and films at Universal and New Line and published graphic novels. His Double Barrel Motion Labs also has helped studios and publishers re-purpose marketing materials for the mobile biz.

“We see the magazine as a way to test new concepts, new ideas before turning them into something else,” Krelitz said. “There are so many opportunities out there now to tell a good story.”